The affair caused both nations to reconsider the situation; with the result that they settled all outstanding difficulties; and the Triple Entente of Great Britain, France and Russia balanced the Triple Alliance. Germany, in 1912, added some 70,000 men to her army, while Austria and Italy increased their fleets. By the time the Allied nations of the Near East had declared war upon the Turkish Empire, in 1912, Russia had recovered from the disastrous results of her war with Japan, so that the Triple Entente once more balanced the Triple Alliance. But the war in the Near East, with the heavy losses it inflicted upon Turkey, had opened anew the whole Eastern question. The settlement concluded {127} at the Berlin Conference thirty-four years previously was abolished in a moment. It has been thought worth while to trace the main developments of European politics from 1873 to the present time; as it happened to Lord Charles Beresford to be a member of that Parliament which saw the triumph of the Beaconsfield policy in foreign affairs, and to be a member of subsequent Parliaments confronted with the emergence of new and sinister international conditions. {128} CHAPTER XV AN IRISH ELECTION AND IRISH POLITICS The political situation in Ireland at the time when I entered politics was characteristically exemplified in the Kerry election of 1872, in which I took part. It was fought entirely on the Home Rule issue, which had been revived by Isaac Butt when, in 1870, he formed his Home Government Association. In the Kerry election of 1872, the Roman Catholic hierarchy was opposed to Home Rule. The anti-Home Rule candidate, Mr. Deas, was a Roman Catholic, a local landlord and extremely popular. His opponent, Mr. Blennerhasset, was a Protestant and a stranger to the locality. But because he was a Home Ruler, he was elected in spite of the priests and of the personal claims of Mr. Deas, winning by 839 votes. I may add that he won in spite also of my exertions, which were considerable. I started at two o'clock in the morning with Mr. Harry Herbert of Muckross, and led a band of 350 tenants to the poll. (The Ballot Act was not passed until 18th July of the same year, 1872.) Having polled the tenants, I was strolling in the street, when I was stopped by one of my grand fellow-countrymen, a huge man of about six feet five. "Are ye for Home Rule?" says he. "To hell with your Home Rule!" said I. Whereupon he hit me on the point of the nose, knocking me over backwards, and effectually silencing my arguments for the space of an hour and a half. {129}